Thursday, 29 November 2012

In all the calculations on the cost to Ireland of the bank bailout, one element is always overlooked - what price a nation's soul?

I
could dazzle you with numbers at this stage, the €115bn in bonds that our
failed banks have paid out since the ill-advised blanket bank guarantee of September
2008 (and let’s not bother here with the equally ill-advised circumstances in which
that guarantee was given), the €69.7bn we have pumped into our banks (including
the oft overlooked €5.5bn NAMA donation), which translates to over €15,200 of
debt for every resident of this state – man, woman and child.

I
could point to the ironic symmetry that’s developing:First,
the €12.4bn in austerity budget cuts/taxes over the years 2012/13/14/15
(3.8+3.5+3.1+2), the €12.4bn total in Promissory Notes over the same period
(3.1x4) – for whose benefit all this austerity? Second,
the €67.5bn in loans promised by the Troika of IMF/EU/ECB under the Memorandum
of Enslavement of November 2010, against the above-mentioned €69.7bn we’ve
given to the banks – who bailed out who?

I could tell you about the lies, the massaging of numbers to disguise just how bad things are in Ireland today, the additional off-balance-sheet NAMA and IBRC government debt that runs into the tens of billions, the use of the multinational-skewed GDP figure as opposed to the far more pertinent - and far smaller - GNP, when calculating our true debt situation.

Then
you look at the unemployment figures, the notional official number of just
under 15%, the real number of over 17% when the various ‘schemes’ are taken
into account.

Finally,
the emigration numbers, the 7,000 who left this country every month for the last 12 months, taking their own pain with them but also, leaving great pain behind - gaps in homes, gaps in parishes, gaps in entire generations.

All
these thing we can measure and quantify and already, looking at the numbers above, you must
wonder – given that we still don’t
have a functioning banking system, given also that so many of those at the top within
that banking system who got us into this mess are still there and still drawing massive salaries, who in God’s name
thinks the bank bailout has been worth all of that?

This
is about more than numbers, however. There is that one element I mentioned above, an element always
overlooked, an element unquantifiable. What price our freedom, what price our
independence, what price the soul of a nation?

We
have swapped one Empire for another, one form of serfdom for another. What was
being done from Dublin Castle is now being done from Leinster House, a new set
of Agents collecting tithes for our new Masters. This government has repeated
ad nauseum its ambition to say goodbye to the Troika but that same Troika will
leave with a smile on its face. Why? Because they will have achieved what they came
to achieve (in particular the EU/ECB duo) – they have made us a nation of debt slaves.

Fianna
Fáil and the Green Party, now Fine Gael and Labour, they have signed away our
soul, they have become the new Overseers, collecting and forwarding the 30 pieces
of silver.

What
have we done? What cost to a nation’s reputation? The Fighting Irish? The Proud
Irish? The Indomitable Irish? I was at a an international debt conference in
Brussels last week with nearly 20
countries represented – when I outlined the numbers above there was almost
universal bemusement that a government would accept such abasement of its own
people.

We
are not a meek people, we are not a weak people. As evidenced by the fact that
earlier this year nearly a million homeowners willingly and voluntarily
criminalised themselves by refusing to register for the Household Charge, evidenced
further by the number of protests of various kinds across the nation, there is
massive and growing anger. Rather than belittling and berating those who thus
take a stand this government would be well advised to be aware of that anger,
and to beware. A reckoning is coming.

This
is week 92 of the Ballyhea and Charleville protest against that bank bailout –
it’s time you all joined us. Every week we march, in Charleville this Sunday (Library
Plaza 11.30am). We refuse to become debt slaves, paying for loans we never took
out, loans from which we never benefited. We are not looking for better terms
and conditions on those loans, we want to shatter the shackles of serfdom,
beginning with the weakest link, the Promissory Notes – burn them, now. Time to
reclaim our soul my friends, time to reclaim our ancient fighting spirit.